Having traced our Scandinavian roots we shift to a tougher one to crack; The Harrison side of the family– born into the Russian Empire what is currently Lithuania. Difficult because there was little to go on. We had first hand knowledge of those who were born in the USA of course but their parents that immigrated and who had enjoyed good lives here were loath to talk about their past. In other words any hard facts were not forthcoming. We did not have places of birth, dates, or even their former names and spellings.

Nanny Fan dismissed most inquiries, saying that her last memories of the old country were too distressing to re-live. We believe she probably witnessed religious prejudice, cruelty and even bloodshed. There were hints that some emigrated with just the clothes on their backs and valuables hand stitched into coat linings.

We think our relatives from the old world would have wanted to assimilate as citizens into the USA not only to avoid scorn or ridicule but to gain a normalcy that would not sabotage their sense of community or livelihood. First order of self help: losing a foreign sounding name and learning English. So, none of us twice removed had good intel.

We had but one strong hint: the original family surname sounded like “Kurgon”. So where to begin…

Working backward with the closest relative, father or mother, we find out who their parents were and in this case learn that Zadie’s father, Max Boris Harrison had immigrated. Starting with a 1910 United States Census we scrape the year of immigration (1908) and discover that he, with parents and siblings, were under the same roof in the USA by 1910. It was likely that they immigrated together as well; but what surname? Harrison was the naturalized but how to search for this family in archival ship passenger listings?

A challenge is that invariably each tracking document has the names malformed in some way. Not only were names changed but then altered or misspelled through clerical error along the way. The Census poll has the name as Herrison. Sifting through passenger lists would have been and impossible task before searchable computer databases. Realize that a data set was once transcribed by human hand from records hand written and with hopeful accuracy. In our case Harrison turns up zilch. Luckily a search engine allows for fuzzy or broad pattern name spellings. Browsing dozens of returns we capture a hit with a Max Herison. And with a departure port of Hamburg, Germany it makes sense. A bit of sleuthing reveals that this was close proximity and the natural point for anyone emigrating from the area now known as Lithuania. A German document processor upon hearing Harrison phonetically would have written down Herison. The German word Herr (a conventional title showing respect when addressing a German gentleman translated as Sir or Mr. and sounds like “hair”) so naturally a local clerk might trade the letter e for the a. His counterpart in New York would switch it back from e to a!

Observe Max B, his mother Rose, and younger sisters Dora, Lena, and Hannah all together. (Father: Morris immigrated in 1904) Their ship makes interesting historical reading. It was operated by the Hamburg-Amerika Line and they traveled Steerage Class on the 9 day voyage to New York.

So we now know Hamburg. Our family boarded with their new surname Herison but the trail goes cold again. Searching the old name Kurgon reveals little except that an alternate spelling, Kurgan, offers many hits but with another obstacle. The first/middle name Max Borris would need to be translated along with everyone else’s given names. Mother, Rose was Rasha or Rasya in the old world. Dora Sarah was Sore Dvora. Morris Harrison was Movsha and had many name variations but ultimately was to become Morris. Max Boris birth name was Berel Mordekhay. That one was never going to turn up even with the broadest of search variations. There was better luck with his father’s name which helped to pinpoint him with the other family members.

Finally, having the names we could find places and dates. Browsing the LitvakSIG online data source for taxation, conscription, and family list ledgers was fruitful.

The central government did in fact run a comprehensive Census back in the day, which would have been most excellent for our purposes except that they only retained population counts and counts by ethnic percentage — discarding all the other details. Shoot.

Armed with a a place, also with spelling variations depending on nationality, required some geo-political learning. In the USA we have town|county|state with maybe a rural township to complicate the effort. The Russian Empire used province|district|town as we drill down. One aspect is that modern political borders and alignments are significantly less helpful. Lithuania for example wasn’t a thing before WW I but listing a country location as Russia does not work either. One must find and utilize period correct maps.

These old time provinces today would encompass Lithuania and spill into current day Belarus and Poland. Our Kurgan (Harrison) group lived in Vilkija which is on the Nemunas River in the province of Kovno district of Kovno. An alternate spelling, Kaunas, is synonymous. The former is Russian and Lithuanian is the latter. Here we find our relatives and discover some who didn’t make it to America.

By the time we, as descendent children, take interest and get around to inquiring about family background history — direct informational account is no longer possible and by now second/third hand news. Logistically, one’s closest living relative was probably a youngster themselves (Nanny Fan was age 5) when she and her family emigrated and she would have had scant primary recall. She would have instead relied upon stories or tales after the fact and that these recollections may have been influenced by blur, bias, or emotion.

So the old family backstories were easily contorted or even lost all together. It’s interesting to uncover them in the perspective of historical times past and with a perceived glimpse into what once was.